


Dumb Luck

by RisemboolRanger



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Death, F/M, Ghosts, Humour, Limbo, Multi, Romance, Sex, Vigilante, mercenery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:12:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2103939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisemboolRanger/pseuds/RisemboolRanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dead have always been pretty fond of Hayden, even if the feeling isn't mutual. People tell her she's crazy when she claims she can hear spirits, but that's okay. She knows someone who's much crazier. Because even talking to ghosts is a lot more normal than talking to the voices in your head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fast Cars and Ghostie Friends

Hayden Snow stood at the edge of the bridge, hovering right on the precipice so that her vision was filled with nothing but the lethal, crashing waves of the harbour below her. In some cities, you'd think that people would take more notice of a young woman standing ready to jump to her death, but here, cars and pedestrians just passed her by as if she was simply part of their everyday scenery.

She spread her arms wide and lifted one foot, tentatively holding it over the edge as if she was about to step out into the air. As soon as she did, the whispering started in her head and the wind started to pick up, swirling around her like it was entombing her within a cocoon, warning her away. Hayden ignored the warning and instead let herself fall forward, allowing gravity to take her the rest of the way...

Only it never happened. The wind suddenly roared to life, rushing up to meet her with such inexplicable force that it knocked her right back onto the solid ground of the sidewalk along the inside edge of the bridge. To anybody else, it would have looked like she'd simply changed her mind; that she'd decided life was worth living after all. Even if they'd experienced the sudden change in wind speed from what had otherwise been nothing more than a light breeze, they'd have passed it off as just a minor freak of nature.

But Hayden knew better. She'd tested it many times before to definitely know better. She knew that it was because of this bizarre lucky streak that had been following her ever since she'd come out of her coma six years ago. She knew that it wasn't something that could be so easily explained... or even easily bypassed.

As she'd always so eloquently put it, it was just pure dumb luck.

The whispers in her head dulled back to their usual quiet murmurs. Something she was more than used to. Hayden had used to think that she was crazy - constantly hearing these voices... Until she'd learnt that the voices were actually spirits. Though maybe that made her even more crazy. Still, as she used to tell people, "I'm not crazy. The voices aren't in my head; they're all around me."

But then the claims of someone who was addicted to drink, drugs and any other intoxicating substance that she could get her hands on apparently weren't all that credible. Everyone was a critic nowadays. Your word wasn't good for anything once you were labelled as anything other than normal.

Suitably satisfied, Hayden turned away from the wall of the bridge and continued on her path towards downtown on the other side. She wouldn't have liked diving from the bridge as a way to go anyway. She wasn't too fond of the waters. She wasn't that hot on the idea of dying either. Not anymore. Every now and then, she just liked to test the waters, so to speak. Just to see if her little spirit friends were still keeping up her lucky streak.

She'd eventually learnt that it was these same spirits that she could hear who seemed to have taken it upon themselves to help keep her safe. Hayden wasn't really sure why they'd taken such a shine to her. Maybe they'd all had a jolly good time together in limbo when she'd been living on machines. Or maybe it was because she was just that damn awesome.

Though her boss wouldn't really be feeling the awesomeness if she turned up late for her shift. Maybe experimenting on the way to work wasn't the smartest idea. And seeing as her little test had succeeded, she couldn't even use the excuse of dying as her reason for being late. She was sure her boss wouldn't have heard that one before.

As it was, she managed to get to work on time anyway, thanks to power walking the rest of the way. The garage downtown wasn't in the friendliest of areas, so she didn't run into many people on the way. That worked out well for Sal's Chop Shop. Repairing cars wasn't the garage's only business - their background motive also being where Hayden came in. You could look at it in many different ways, but when it came down to it, her job wasn't exactly... well, legal.

After clocking in on the old-fashioned card punching machine, Hayden went straight through to the lockers. She was one of the very few employees who even had a locker, but then that was because she had a very specific uniform to wear that she always just kept at work. She was the only one who did what she did. Ergo, the only one who needed a uniform other than the usual jade coveralls that the rest of her colleagues wore over old tees and jeans.

She pulled open the door of her locker, green eyes meeting her from the mirror glued to the inside. Her almost black hair was tied forward into her usual twin braids that just reached her shoulders. The braids should have given her a rather girlish look, but it was spoiled by the dominatrix style thigh-high boots and stockings, the black and blue body art criss-crossing down both arms and the revealing, lace-up tailcoat that cut across her otherwise naked skin and displayed a dangerous amount of bare cleavage. 

Not anymore, however. The boobs were going away for now. She zipped herself into the matching leathers of her uniform from head to foot, having to lose the boots for less fashionable ones with steel toe caps. All in the name of health and safety. As safe as you could be as a human crash test dummy anyway. She grabbed her helmet and headed down to the back of the shop. Everyone knew the dodgy things always happened round the back.

"Sup, boss man?" she greeted the familiar back of the head that was bent over the hood of a car that didn't really have the rest of the car attached anymore. Hayden wasn't sure what was under the hood was the car's biggest problem. Whatever Sal was doing was no doubt something else illegal.

He straightened up when he heard her. There was no means of greeting in response - his usual impatience getting in the way and colouring his already strong New Yorker accent. "Come on, come on; we've already got a car waitin' for ya."

On time and he still treated her like she was late. Sal was blunt in every aspect of his profession. He had no time for niceties - only time for making money. Standing at the same height as her at around five six, five seven, Hayden had always reckoned that Sal had 'little man's syndrome'. He certainly spent enough time trying to intimidate people with his mouth instead. With dark hair and eyes and particularly pointy teeth, he could have played the part of a creature of the underworld in any vampire flick over the last decade or so. Well... maybe not Twilight. Nobody would want that.

"Yeah, I'm moving. Chill your beans," Hayden replied.

She pulled the bronze steampunk goggles she usually wore on her head down out of the way, so that they hung around her neck, and fitted the helmet into place instead. She left the visor open so that she could still hear and see better and let Sal lead her round to a violently orange, outrageous looking hypercar that she didn't even recognise.

"Whoa, what the hell is that thing?" she exclaimed.

"New model from Italy," said Sal. "This is just a prototype. Unknown make; they're callin' it the Mostro for now. Means monster. They wanna make it the fastest road legal car on the market."

"And we're gonna test if it can be classed as legal or not," added Hayden, catching on.

"Only automobile industries can make those decisions," Sal pointed out. "We're just gonna make sure its passengers can keep up with the engine without gettin' pummelled."

"Sounds fun," Hayden commented without a hint of sarcasm.

"I want ya to try a basic crash test first, seein' as we've got it in here," said Sal. "If that all works out, we'll get it moved down to the air strip."

Further downtown was a small, derelict airport. Sal had somehow managed to wangle the deeds to it several years after it had been closed down for good. His partner owned a tow truck, which they'd use to transfer cars to the air strip for speed and handling tests. The abandoned runways provided the perfect open spaces to trial fast cars without obstacles or unwanted spectators.

The majority of Sal's income came from such tests. Car companies paid him big money for testing the safety on their new prototypes for them. Crash test dummies could only go so far as a substitute for real humans. It was easy to tell when a dummy was crushed or torn apart during experiments, but not as easy to pick up on less obvious damage. Dummies couldn't tell you if the seat had jarred their back, if the headrest had given them whiplash, if they'd smashed their kneecaps because there wasn't enough leg room in the cockpit...

Instead, that had become Hayden's role. When Sal had decided that using real live crash test dummies would be much more beneficial in getting the _real_ results, he'd struggled to find anyone willing to let themselves get smashed up just for some quick cash. Sal had found Hayden purely by chance, after witnessing her jump from a four-storey fire escape under one of her own experiments and escape with nothing but a broken toenail. He'd offered her the job and she'd taken it without question.

Hayden knew she wasn't invincible. Not by a long shot. She could receive injury just as easily as anyone else. But she was confident enough that her lucky streak would keep her safe enough from taking any serious damage. The constant presence of spirits may have been annoying at times, but it certainly had its uses for things like this. Any minor injuries she was likely to sustain from her work were worth it for the money she got in return. It being such a dangerous job, Sal paid her a _lot_ for it. That was just one of the perks.

Another being that she got to drive all these fancy cars first hand. Hayden wasn't much of a gear head when it came to cars and she didn't pretend to know a whole lot about them, but she knew that a lot of people would give a whole lot to get to test drive some of them like she did. And she could certainly appreciate how good some of these new prototypes looked at least. The Mostro was definitely one of them, if a little crazy. Crazy, but good. That was right up her street.

"Let's do this!" she said eagerly.

She clambered into the low-built hypercar, ducking to avoid the scissor doors. Now that was a pretty awesome feature. Her leathers squeaked against the seat made of the same material, though the interior was all streaked with loud red racing stripes against the black. The dash in front of her was very basic - none of the high-tech displays that you got in most new cars nowadays. That suited Hayden much more. Technology tended to hate her. At least that was what she told people.

"Take her into the vault and do a run up at the wall," Sal told her through the open door. "Best to test the airbags out first. This baby does zero to sixty in two point five seconds and zero to a hundred in less than five, so you'll want 'em to be workin'."

"Rightio."

The vault was their name for their best testing area. It was situated right against the far wall of the surprisingly extensive garage, sided by an extra wall of super strength, bullet proof glass, as well as the target wall, which was reinforced with layers of steel tubing and concrete. It was completely unforgiving, which made it the perfect example to see how cars could withstand driving headlong into solid objects.

Sal tipped the door closed. "Just hope the airbags go off," were his last words as he patted the carbon fibre roof of the car.

How comforting. Thankfully, Hayden had other reassurances to rely on. Feeling perfectly confident, she pulled the visor down on her helmet, strapped herself into the seat and put the car into drive. The Italians had certainly put their money into this one - the steering was so feather light yet so concise that she felt like the car was responding to her thoughts rather than her touch. She manoeuvred it easily into the vault, backing up to the furthest point away from the target wall inside the enclosed space.

With the car back in drive, she stomped her foot onto the accelerator, ready to test out this two point five seconds from zero to sixty statistic... Only she didn't get that far. The engine snarled to life and jumped the car forward, but as soon as it moved off, there was a huge _bang_ and it suddenly careered sideways, crashing into the bullet proof glass before it could reach any kind of serious speed.

Even from inside both the helmet and the car's interior, Hayden heard a shout from Sal of, "What the hell was that?"

Completely unharmed, she lifted the visor of the helmet and unclipped the seat harnesses. She pressed down on the button to open the window and leant out for a good look. The front tyre on the driver's side had burst, leaving a gaping tear in the sidewall. That explained the bang. A burst tyre was certainly better than a burst engine. Or a burst head, for that matter.

"Flat tyre," she said calmly, still surveying the damage.

She knew that was somebody's way of telling her that the car definitely wasn't safe to drive yet. That same lucky streak yet again that had just kept her from getting crushed, blown up or having her head torn off. She wasn't really fussed which would have happened, just so long as it didn't. She knew well enough to trust the judgement of her little ghostie friends. And it was a good enough demonstration for Sal to see that it wasn't safe either. Sure enough, he sighed and gestured for her to get out.

Hayden did as she was told and happily got out of the car and squeezed past it to get out of the vault. She took her helmet off. "You may wanna tell the Italians to do some re-assessing before I get back in there."

"I swear bad luck just follows you everywhere," Sal complained.

"Beats being smushed up the target wall. I prefer to think of it as good luck," Hayden said lightly. "Call it a sign."

"Damn superstition..." Sal grumbled.

"Hey, you're the one who always calls me unlucky," Hayden pointed out. She was sure that if he knew the full story like she did, then he'd probably think differently. "Now who's the superstitious one?"

"Yeah, yeah," Sal waved the comment away. "Dammit... I can't believe I'm gonna have to get this imported back like this. The company would have given us a shit load of money if we'd gotten all the tests done successfully on it."

"Will they charge you for sending it back not in mint condition?" Hayden asked.

"Naw. Part of our agreement. Whatever happens during testin' doesn't put us at fault; it's faults of production," Sal explained. "They won't be happy though. And we won't get paid for any of it."

"Well, at least it's better to send it back with a bust tyre rather than sending it back in a cube," said Hayden helpfully. Sal simply grunted in response. "So is that the only one I have to test today or you got anything else for me?"

"Go check with Santiago. She was workin' on somethin' she reckoned she'd have ready by this morning."

His tone made it clear that he didn't need her for the rest of the day. Hayden didn't take it personally - she knew he wasn't exactly mad with her. He'd just be moping for a while over the idea of missing the chance to score some easy money. Too bad. The Italians had a way to go before they could make the claim they wanted. The Mostro clearly wasn't anywhere near road legal just yet.

She went outside to find Santiago instead. Jenny Santiago was Sal's business partner, as well as his girlfriend. Hayden had never really understood how a creep like Sal had managed to find such a down-to-earth hottie. Santiago was even shorter than Sal was, but with a perfectly proportioned hourglass figure. She was supposedly Latina, but instead of the more predominant darker colouring of most Latinas, her black hair clashed with very fair skin and unusually pale blue eyes. Santiago often joked that her parents had found her in their back yard.

"Hey, girl," Santiago greeted her. Her coveralls were smattered with oil, as usual. "Sal tell you I've got a new challenge for you?"

"Something like that."

"Well, take a look!"

Santiago gestured towards the near end of the junkyard that the garage backed onto. Sat alongside a wall of spare tyres was an old rust red Toyota Hilux truck. The paint job had definitely seen better days, but besides that, it looked to be in pretty good shape, particularly for the ten-plus year that was indicated by its license plate.

"Whose is it?" asked Hayden.

"Some old kook from New Jersey who wants to take it cross-country for some world record attempt," said Santiago. "The Hilux is meant to be extremely sturdy, so he wants us to run a few tests and make sure it's still safe to use. If it is, he's gonna pay us all the costs to spruce it back up to like-new condition."

"You want me for an airbag check then?"

"Nope, we spring tested them and all the airbags are working fine," said Santiago. "But we still want you to do a crash test, just to make sure the bodywork can withstand collisions without anything falling off. The hood's bound to take a beating if it's gonna be going cross-country... So you up for it?"

That was the difference between Santiago and Sal. Santiago always asked, whereas Sal just assumed. Santiago was one of the few people that Hayden could class as anything close to a friend. Most people in her life had discovered quickly that she was a known flight risk and learnt not to trust her. Hayden liked to be sociable, but she always put herself first. If it was in her best interest to suddenly take off and leave someone else behind, then that was what she'd do. Weirdly, Santiago seemed to have learnt this like everyone else had. The odd part was that she'd actually still stuck around.

"Sure," Hayden agreed. "Let's see what it can take!"

The Mostro had to be extracted from the vault first so that they could get the Hilux in there instead. Whilst Hayden was waiting for the two to be switched over, she sat on the hood of an old Volkswagen and checked her cell phone. She had three new text messages - only one of which she was interested in. She left the other two unread.

"Is this the only car you need me to test today?" she asked Santiago, looking up from her phone.

"Yup," replied Santiago. "And if Sal sent you to me already, then I'm guessing he doesn't have anything else for you either. So you can go home after this one."

"Awesome."

That was another perk - her shifts were usually crazily short hours. Which meant she had the rest of the day to herself. That worked out quite well, seeing as the one text message she'd had was regarding her 'other' job. And that one was even more fun that crashing cars. Sometimes her life really did feel like it was all play and no work. It was a total win-win. She was definitely glad she hadn't jumped off that bridge earlier.

Hayden didn't need any interferences on this test. She was able to plough the truck straight into the target wall without any hiccups, escaping with her worst injury being just a slightly stiff neck. Nice and simple. Plus since her job role was so dodgy, she didn't have the ins and outs of an employee contract like everyone else, so she got paid up front for every crash test she did. Yay.

She liked having money in hand where she could see it, but she did tend to splurge out on drink and poker games that way. Her addictive tendencies often stretched to other substances too. It all depended on how much else she had to occupy her mind at the time. But from the sounds of it, tonight was going to be an interesting one, so drugs were far from her mind right now.

She whiled away her time downtown by alternating between seedy bars and an old arcade until the evening. Though there were plenty of unsavoury folk downtown, her face was fairly known there. People generally knew they were better to leave her alone, thanks to a few well-placed connections. Or at least one connection in particular.

As it started to grow dark outside, her cell phone buzzed to signal another incoming text message. ' _Hey Ghost Whisperer, toga party's in an hour. Bring pointy things. And guns. Lots of guns._ '

That was all the confirmation that Hayden had been waiting for. She much preferred working for her other so-called 'boss'. He was probably the only person who could make her feel entirely normal. If her gifts were freaky, then his were weirder. If she was untrustworthy, then he was worse. And if people thought she was crazy, then he was most certainly utterly and certifiably insane. Plus the perks of _that_ job usually included guns, explosions and often sex. And apparently pointy things. Couldn't forget the pointy things.

Feeling considerably more excited, Hayden purposely crashed out of the old Space Invaders game that she was playing and took her leave. Time to get ready for the party.


	2. Explosives and Pointy Things

Hayden headed back to her apartment first to collect the guns and pointy things, as she'd been instructed. She knew how to be a good little henchgirl. Most girls would probably go home to get changed first too - that is, if she had actually been going to a party. Instead, it was code. Going to a toga party actually meant she was going to go and kill people. It was all fun and games with her second job.

The first thing she grabbed was her 'overnight bag' - a long, one-shoulder duffel bag with a little pulley string at the top, usually sold to carry sport equipment. Hayden didn't like the bag. It was ugly and a dark camping green - it hadn't been available in any other colours. But civvies tended to freak out if you strolled about town as you pleased, carrying a giant fuck-off gun. Things would be easier with the stupid bag.

Her apartment wasn't exactly big. More than half of her bedroom was taken up by a large, walk-in wardrobe. The wardrobe was enough to send most people running. One half was for clothes; the other was for weapons. The storage had originally been all for clothes, until a certain somebody had decided that she needed to downsize the clothing and upsize the firepower department. Hayden hadn't taken much convincing to agree to it. As in, no convincing.

She stuffed the duffel bag full with as much weaponry as she could comfortably carry. She didn't know how far she had to travel yet; let alone how much running and possibly climbing might be involved. A variety of guns made it into the bag, including a very big shotgun that she'd recently acquired and had been itching to use, a couple of grenades to be on the safe side, and a barrage of the aforementioned pointy things.

Whilst she was packing, her phone buzzed to signal another incoming text message. This one to tell her location of the toga party - or rather, mark, now that they were going with full disclosure - as well as another reminder about the pointy things.

"Yeah, yeah, I've got your pointy things," Hayden muttered to herself. People called her crazy, but they had no idea what it was like to have to deal with _real_ crazy.

The mark was right on the outskirts of downtown. It was an area that most people, including the police, only went to if they had to. It was run by one of the mafia gangs in the city and, as any bad gangster movie would tell you, you didn't mess with the mafia. That would probably explain who the mark was on. Since downtown was so far from her place, Hayden knew she'd either have to catch a cab, which would be expensive with the distance and undesirable location, or get creative. She liked the sound of getting creative more.

She slung the bag of danger goodies over her shoulder and took a quick peek in the mirror to appraise her outfit. Though it was no party she was heading to, she still needed to establish a few minor things. One, was she likely to flash her ass at someone? No, pinstripe hot pants had taken precedence over a skirt today. Two, was there a chance her boobs were going to fall out? Probably. She tightened the fastening on her corset and left it at that, conceding that it counted as an effort. She didn't really care if anyone caught an eyeful of the goods - she just didn't want to risk wasting any valuable getting away time tucking things into the relevant place if the situation went tits up. Maybe even literally, seeing as she wasn't wearing a bra.

Once outside, Hayden headed straight for the nearest freeway. Most big trucks would take this route straight down to the loading depot near the harbour. The harbour was downtown - right near where she needed to go. Hayden wanted one of those trucks. It would be much cheaper and way more exciting than any cab ride. She hovered near the roadside. Two large trucks passed by at full pelt, each one of them attempting to beat the traffic lights as they flicked to amber. Hayden chose to ignore those, rather than attempting to somehow latch onto the side of one at high speeds. She was reckless, but she wasn't completely stupid.

As usual, luck was on her side - or rather, the spirits were. A big blue truck with an advertisement for Wimpy's on the side was forced to slow for the lights that everyone else had liked to ignore, as they were already on red when it was approaching. Hayden had a feeling that there was an unseen spirit loitering near those traffic lights. A poltergeist, probably. Most spirits didn't have the consistency to be able to affect solid matter like that. Regardless, she shot a jaunty salute towards the traffic lights, before hurrying after the truck.

The lights flicked back up to amber before it reached the crossing, so it never stopped completely and began to slowly pick up speed again, but Hayden was already on its tail. Forced into no more than a brisk jog, she reached the cab of the truck and grabbed the handle, dragging herself up above the wheels, unbeknownst to the driver. The speed began to increase even more, but the danger was over now - she was already on board. Satisfied, Hayden settled herself comfortably in the join between the cab and the truck and watched the city blitz by as the driver continued on his way, unaware of the surprise passenger.

After the first half hour, Hayden got back to her feet and balanced herself on the rickety, moving framework of metal, periodically peeking around the side of the cab to see whereabouts she was. They were getting closer to downtown now. Maybe another ten minutes. After five, she felt a horrendous whistling of wind in her left ear. As she swatted at it impatiently, a truck suddenly roared past in the opposite direction, way too close for comfort, even with the cab as protection to hide behind. It was lucky - she'd just been about to poke her head back out for another look.

Of course. _Lucky_.

"Thanks, stranger," she said to no one in particular, digging her finger into her ear. "Though maybe a less invasive heads up next time, okay?" The whispers in her head were bad enough.

When she saw the first dingy bar along the roadside, she knew it was time to disembark. The truck didn't seem to be slowing any and there was no more blowing in her ears, or any other sign against what she was planning, so she guessed that meant she didn't need luck for this part. She peered out from behind the cab again. The rest of the road was clear. It was time to tuck and roll.

She leapt out into the air, pushing herself away from the truck as leverage, making sure she put plenty of space between her and those crushing wheels. She let herself land feet first for just a moment, then allowed the momentum to cartwheel her over, curling herself into a ball for protection as she rolled along the roadside. The tarmac bit at the skin of her bare arms and legs, giving her one hell of a body burn, but she escaped with nothing worse.

"Son of a bitch," she cursed, as she pulled herself to her feet and stepped away from the road. Even with her ghostie guides around, she didn't want to risk getting splatted by another oncoming truck after that.

Her arms were scraped up the worst - red welts interrupted the expanse of blue tattoo lines across her skin, already covering up a mass of scar tissue as it was. The scrapes weren't actually bleeding too much. They looked more like the equivalent of what a child would get if he fell on his knees whilst playing. They hurt a lot worse than they looked. Hayden always hated that - it made you come across like a baby. There was gravel embedded in quite a few of the open wounds, but she wasn't too worried about that. Though she healed like any regular person, she happened to have one hell of an immune system. Infections could suck it.

She had a quick peek inside the bag to make sure everything had survived her little tuck and roll display. They had. She hadn't even set one of the guns off by accident, thanks to keeping each of the safeties on. Safeties saved lives, kids.

Looking a little worse for wear, though certainly not out of place downtown, Hayden slung the bag across her shoulder once more and continued on her way. It didn't take her long to locate the building in question - it was the most high rise place in the whole area. She was already late for the toga party and felt like just storming straight in, guns and pointy things a 'blazing, but again, there was a fine line between recklessness and stupidity. She danced along that line fairly often, but when dealing with the mafia, you had to know the right steps.

Luckily for her, she had the means to view things from a different perspective.

She pushed down the bronze steampunk goggles that she always wore on her head. As they slid over her eyes, they threw the world into greyscale. She knew the colours were there; the goggles just made them much duller. But this time, she didn't even notice the absence of colour. Instead, she was more distracted by the line of ghosts that were facing her, surrounding the front of the building.

"Err, what's up, guys?" she tried tentatively.

Of course, none of them responded. Ghosts could be a real pain in the ass. Whenever she wanted to be left alone, she heard voices so often that, in the past, she had quite literally believed she was crazy. Yet when she actually wanted a response, she got nothing. She knew that the spirits were her protection - they were the reason many times over that she was still alive today - but sometimes, she couldn't help but think that they just hung around to piss her off.

She took a step forward and the line of ghosts did the same, moving closer towards her, still forming a barrier around the front of the building. It was like they were trying to create a shield to stop her from passing. Physically, Hayden could have easily just walked through them and felt nothing more than a brief chill from it. But she trusted her spirit guides. They were clearly attempting to stop her for a reason. It would just be nice if they would tell her what that reason was.

She took another cautious step forwards to test their shields. "What; are you guys security detail or something?"

The words had barely left her mouth when the building in question suddenly exploded. Hayden was thrown back from the blast. Pain reverberated through her body as she landed hard on her ass. She hoped she hadn't broken anything down there. That would really suck, even just for sitting down, amongst other things. She was sure she'd at least have one hell of a bruise.

"Fuck!" she cursed.

She staggered to her feet and tested her limbs to make sure they were all working still, trying to ignore the ringing in her ears from the explosion. Her face felt hot from the roar of flames that had passed over her, though she hadn't been close enough to have suffered any burns. For the most part, she seemed to be okay. Her goggles were still in place, but the spirits had now all disappeared. They'd saved her ass once again. Well, not literally, this time. That particular part of her still hurt like a bitch.

She pushed the goggles back up onto the top of her head and squinted to try and clear her view. It didn't help much. The building was now hidden behind a mass of dancing flames. Surely anybody inside who'd somehow managed to survive the blast would just be burnt to a crisp anyway. Well, shit. Did that mean the fun was over already?

"How'd you like that for a barbeque, mother-fuckers?"

Hmm, maybe it wasn't just yet. Though Hayden couldn't exactly say she was happy to have missed out on at least some of the explosions. As the smoke cleared, she was able to see things a little better - namely, the person responsible for the giant, burning mess in front of her. She stomped over to the man in the red and black suit who was currently dancing around the edge of the blazing building, as close as he could without catching fire, like he was dancing around a tribe campfire.

"Hey!" She gave him a shove to get his attention.

"Hayden, babe, you made it. How'd you like the fireworks show?" he greeted cheerily.

"I would have liked it more if you'd waited for me to show up," she protested. "Especially so that I could have got out of the firing line."

"What else was I supposed to do? That's what happens when you show up late to the party."

"There was traffic on the freeway," Hayden replied dryly. She knew there was no point in arguing that she wasn't late at all. You couldn't really argue with crazy. Crazy never listened.

"So did you get the pointy things?" he asked, practically jumping up and down on the spot. Deadpool had one hell of a reputation, namely as a badass mother-fucker. Yet at other times, he could be just downright camp.

"Yeah, yeah, I got the pointy things." Hayden rolled her eyes. "But what's the point now? The fun's already over." She cast a meaningful look towards the blaze that had once been a building.

"Babe. The fun's _never_ over."

Hayden raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so what's next then?" If there was still more work to be done, then maybe this trip wouldn't be such a bust.

"Well, this building was just for shits and giggles." Deadpool pointed across the parking lot to the towering block on the other side. " _That's_ where our mark's currently holed up."

A grin split across Hayden's face. So she hadn't missed out on anything after all. She should have known. "Now that's what I'm talking about."

She'd barely finished her sentence when there was a very loud whistling that felt like it was right in her ear, just like when she'd been on the truck. Only now, she was just standing here and not doing anything particularly dangerous, so she did the first logical thing that came to her head and ducked. A bullet whizzed past right where her noggin had been only moments before, missing Deadpool's by barely an inch. Her ghostie friends in action again. If she didn't have them, she'd have been riddled with holes by now.

"Shit!" Deadpool cursed. "They must know something's about to go down."

"Gee, I wonder how." Hayden looked pointedly towards the column of fire behind them. Her sarcasm was soon cut short when another bullet pinged past. "How about, for now, we get out of the line of fire?"

The next bullet slammed into Deadpool's bicep, bringing another stream of profanities from his mouth. "Great idea," he managed to finish between gritted teeth.

Hayden grabbed a firm hold of her shoulder bag and they made a dash across the parking lot towards where the bullets were coming from. The main foyer was empty. Funny how people always cleared away from the main point of access whenever there was the threat of an ambush. They found an alcove just inside, where Hayden was able to dump the bag on the floor and show off the arsenal she'd put together. "Ta-daa. I give you guns and pointy things."

"Hallelujah!"

Deadpool wasted no time in grabbing a variety of the knives and switchblades and stuffing them into the pouches hanging off his belt. The remaining ones were filled with grenades, just so they didn't feel lonely. Hayden was hoping he was a good pitcher. It would be alright for him if he turned out to be a poor throw - he was a lot more bombproof than she was. Still, she followed his lead and snagged a couple of blades herself, tucking them into her waistband and the sides of her thigh-high boots. She wasn't so fussed about the grenades personally. There was something in her goody bag that she was a lot more interested in using.

Deadpool's hand closed around the extended barrel of the shotgun just as she grabbed the butt of it. "Now this is definitely more my speed."

"Nuh uh, I brought this for _me_ to use," Hayden protested, tugging the gun towards her.

"Babe, this gun is practically bigger than you." Deadpool tried to jerk the gun back in a rather stupid game of tug-of-war. Hayden wasn't ultimately concerned - the barrel wasn't pointing in her direction.

She resolutely pulled on it again. "Don't care. I was the one who brought the weapons, so I get the giant fuck-off gun."

"What; do you want a medal?"

"Oh, bite me."

"Suck my dick."

Hayden seized the opportunity by giving him a coy look. "Let me use the shotgun and I will later."

Deadpool stared at her through the white eyeholes of his suit for a few seconds before conceding and relinquishing his grip on the gun. "Fine."

Hayden smirked to herself. Though you couldn't argue with crazy, she still knew all the methods for getting her own way. She swung the much lighter weapon bag back over her shoulder and hoisted up the deliciously big shotgun into her arms. "So what's the plan from here?"

But Deadpool was apparently one step ahead, because suddenly, he was already in motion and rushing up the first set of stairs he could find with his twin pistols in the air, yelling, "Chaaaarge!"

Hayden rolled her eyes. It looked like it was guns a 'blazing after all. Despite his unstoppable motor mouth, Deadpool could be a master of stealth when he wanted to be. He just usually didn't want to. Oh well. If you couldn't beat them, join them.

She followed Deadpool's lead, taking the stairs two at a time to catch up. Though the mark and his men had shied away from the explosions, they certainly couldn't ignore all the noise Deadpool was making and the consequent knowledge that the enemy was now very much inside the building. As they continued to rush the stairs, guys with guns suddenly started popping up out of nearby doorways. Why did henchmen always wear black? They didn't do themselves any favours. It certainly made it a lot simpler to pick out who to shoot.

Hayden allowed Deadpool to go first and block the worst of the onslaught of bullets. Bombproof, bulletproof... It certainly wasn't the first time she'd used him as a shield. He easily dispatched several of the men with some rapid fire shooting from the two guns in his hands. As Hayden cleared a corner onto the next landing, three men burst through the door at the end of the corridor ahead of her. She took quick aim with the heavy shotgun and pulled the trigger.

A huge blast of gunpowder and a heavy magnum slug exploded from the end of it, creating a very big hole in the doorway where the three men had once stood and slamming Hayden back into the wall behind her from the serious kickback. Pain shot up her spine, but it was nothing adrenaline couldn't take care of. Bits of limbs now littered the area where she'd made the very big hole.

"Holy shit, that was good," she half breathed, half cursed as she staggered up, peeling herself away from the wall.

Having already dispatched the friends of the men who were now in pieces, Deadpool spared the big hole a glance, torn between being impressed and being annoyed. "Next time, I get the big-ass gun."

They took another flight of stairs and were assaulted by the next wave of assailants. One appeared so suddenly through a door behind Hayden that he was far too close for her to risk shooting and not catch the blast herself. So instead, she swung the shotgun out of the way and kicked him in the crotch with a pointed boot. He went down like a sack of potatoes, crying in pain. Whoever said she fought fair? She turned and quickly fired another round into the fray ahead of her, this time remembering to plant her feet much wider apart and prepare for the kickback. The gun still jumped in her hands, making it feel like it had jarred both her wrists, and she slid back several feet, but at least there was no slamming into walls. The shot did happen to accidentally blast Deadpool through the nearest window though. He'd been far too close to the heart of the fight.

Luckily, he had superb reflexes and managed to grab the remaining sides of the window frame as he was blown through, saving himself from falling the two storeys down to the ground. He pulled himself ungainly back through the broken window, deep rips in his suit now revealing the scarred rivulets of his skin. "The shit, Hayden? A little warning would be nice."

"Whoops. Sorry about that," said Hayden innocently, shouldering the gun.

Having cleared another floor, they took to the stairs again. Hayden could only assume Deadpool knew where he was going to find the mark and that they weren't just taking on some extreme Stairmaster challenge. They made it up two more flights before hitting the next group of cronies. Very kindly making sure she was aiming only towards the bad guys - or worse guys - and not including Deadpool this time, Hayden was just lining up a shot at two guys in black when a third jumped up behind her and attempted to wind an arm around her throat.

She let fire anyway and allowed the kickback to throw both of them backwards, using the force to sandwich her attacker between herself and the wall behind him. He let out a great wheeze as he was crushed back against the wall and dropped his arm. Hayden turned and smacked him hard in the side of the head with the butt of the shotgun for his trouble. He crumpled and slid to the floor.

The whole time, the whispers were strong and loud inside Hayden's head. Only now, it was so relentless that it was more of a constant drone. Her ghostie friends were always worked into overtime when she was at the heart of occasions like this. They worked hard to constantly warn her away from danger, but what they clearly didn't understand was that sometimes - and by sometimes, she meant often - she very much liked to flirt with danger. She appreciated the concern and she certainly didn't want to actually die, but her guides needed to take a chill pill once in a while.

"Ding ding ding, fifth floor," Deadpool announced as he kicked his way through a closed door and onto a new corridor. "Big bad mafia leader department!"

Hayden followed him through just in time to see a bullet tear straight through the side of his head. Deadpool keeled onto his knees, collapsing against the wall. Blood from the wound stained his suit an even darker red. Hayden narrowly managed to duck the next bullet that came her way. She hastily snagged one of the pistols from Deadpool's limp hand and returned the favour, shooting the man waiting up ahead straight through the temple. She hated to admit it but, although the shotgun was super awesome, it really wasn't practical at close range. She didn't like having to follow the laws of practicality. It wasn't her style.

With the coast clear yet again, though who knew how long for, she dragged Deadpool's arm over her shoulder, who was already stirring, and hauled him up into an almost standing position. That was the thing about Deadpool - he had one hell of a regenerative system. He could heal absolutely anything. Some things just took him longer to recover from. Like this, for instance. For most people, getting shot in the head would be kind of a big deal. He was lucky his brains were already scrambled.

"Did anyone catch the number of that train?" he groaned, pressing his other hand to his head, which had already stopped bleeding.

"Yeah, it was a .22mm," Hayden replied dryly, continuing to haul him up until she was sure he could stand on his own. He'd probably still bitch for a while, but he'd always had a good recovery time.

"Where's the guy that did it?" Hayden gestured to the guy on the floor who she'd already shot. Deadpool finally straightened up and then shot the guy three times in the face. "Stupid son of a bitch."

Hayden raised an eyebrow. "Was that really necessary?"

"No. But I feel better already."

Hayden tossed his other pistol back to him. "So now where do we go?"

"Where do you think?" Deadpool started to all but skip down the corridor. "Follow the holy grail."

Hayden didn't bother pointing out how that made no sense. She'd given up on that a long time ago. But apparently, there was some kind of logic to it, because Deadpool soon found what seemed to be the right room. He opened the door and Hayden had a brief impression of some kind of fancy office before the whistling in her ear started so suddenly and so sharply that it send a pang of pain through her head. She followed her own brand of logic and hastily ducked behind Deadpool as a gunshot rang out. This one clipped his shoulder.

"Fuck!" he yelled, instinctively slamming the door shut again. "Why does everybody keep shooting me?"

"Maybe something to do with the whole breaking and entering, killing everyone in sight and blowing up a building," Hayden suggested.

"Gee, some people are such buzz kills." Deadpool opened the door a crack and shouted inside, "Hey pal, have you got any Tylenol in there? I've got a bullet hole in my head the size of a..." The response was another couple of bullets. He pulled a grenade from one of the pouches on his belt. "Fine, if you wanna play it that way..."

"Hey, what are you..." Hayden began, but Deadpool had already snapped the ring from the explosive device.

"Batter up!" he shouted, opening the door again and launching the grenade inside.

As the whistling pierced painfully through her ears again, Hayden did the best thing she could think of and dove onto the floor. Not a second too late. There was an explosion and a rush of heat that skimmed the top of her head. She felt the ground shake underneath her and debris cascaded onto her from the ceiling. When she looked up, the wall in front of her had disintegrated and taken out chunks of the surrounding ones with it. The ex room was filled with smoke that she couldn't see past. Nobody inside could have survived that. She could barely make out a red blur from where Deadpool was sprawled beside her.

"Oh baby, these things pack more of a punch than I thought!" he exclaimed, scrambling back up.

Hayden didn't feel quite as spry when she did the same. She staggered to her feet, using the remainder of a wall to help her. Her ears were ringing, though she couldn't tell if it was because of more imminent danger or an after-effect from the explosion. "What the hell kind of idiot idea was that?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Deadpool pointed out. "Looksie. No more mark to kill."

"There was almost no more us too," Hayden objected, kneading the side of her head. Her ears hadn't hurt this much from the last explosion and that one had been way bigger. As her eyes landed on more grenade pins on the floor, she realised that she'd been right the first time - it _was_ the spirits causing the pain. "Hold up... How many grenades did you throw?"

"Just one. Why?"

"Fuck."

The noise in Hayden's ears suddenly accelerated till the pain was agonising. She didn't need to be a genius to know that meant shit was about to go seriously sideways. The nearest door banged open, seemingly by itself, presenting a clear route to the window. Her friends were clearly telling her to get out and to do it now. She didn't need any more convincing. She would have liked to save Deadpool too... Honestly. But as the grenades seemed to still be on his person, the better option was definitely to get the fuck away from him. People always said to look out for number one after all. She was really good at that.

Deadpool realised what was happening mere moments after she did. "Aw, shit..."

But Hayden was already running for the window. She shouted back over her shoulder, "If you still want that blowjob, then stay right there and come and find me later!"

She heard him curse after her, but it was too late. She launched herself straight through the broken window. It was like one of those real life action moments where everything seemed to slow down frame by frame. She was falling, the ground growing ever closer. Just a few metres away was a garbage truck, stopped by a still burning building for god knows what reason. If only she'd been able to jump that much further, then she might have been ensured a safe landing, rather than the very hard and lethal ground that was going to meet her.

Then the other grenades went off above her and everything suddenly speeded up. The explosion hit her like she'd been slapped by a giant hand. All the wind was knocked out of her as she was propelled forward and then, the next thing she knew, she was lying upside down amongst the garbage in the back of the truck. Huh. Apparently explosions were good for some things. It had given her that extra boost that she'd needed for a soft landing. Now that really was dumb luck.

Or her version of it anyway. She didn't need to look through her goggles to know that there were spirits around who had played a part in helping her. A really big part.

Though on second thought, she didn't really feel that lucky, she decided as the smell of something rotten hit her nostrils. Yeah, yeah, she was alive and all that and, amazingly, not in that much pain after everything that had just happened in the last thirty seconds. But she now stunk of garbage, her ass still hurt, one of her boobs had fell out of her corset and was now refusing to go back in and a burning smell alerted her that part of her hair was on fire.

She hastily swatted it out and fell out of the garbage truck in the process. She groaned. On top of all that, Deadpool was probably going to be all bitchy once he put himself back together. It wasn't the first time she'd left him high and dry. Or about to explode, if they were being specific.

She dragged herself wearily to her feet for what felt like the thousandth time that day. She could hear sirens in the distance, meaning she was probably best to high-tail it out of there as soon as possible. She glanced up at the now second burning building. Those fires weren't going to be put out for a while. That was good. It meant more time before she had to face the music.

She quickly sloped off before any more spectators could show up. There were already several people milling around, but they were more interested in looking at the building that had just half exploded and didn't seem to have noticed the girl that had come flying out of the window and landed in the garbage truck. Her shoulder bag was now falling apart and everything else was trying to fall out of it. She gathered what she could in her arms, trying to make sure the remainder of the material mostly hid the fact that she was carrying a whole arsenal around - albeit a much smaller one than she'd started out with - and hurried along.

Not particularly wanting to try and hail a cab whilst looking so bedraggled and with a rogue boob still poking out, Hayden checked into the first motel she could find. It was rundown and seedy as hell, but that worked just perfectly for her. They didn't care what she looked like and she didn't particularly care what her room looked like. Right now, all she cared about was if it had a working shower. Even if she had to share it with cockroaches and a few rats.

As it was, there were no rats or cockroaches, the shower was small but in full working order and the bed wasn't even that scummy once she tossed the greying comforter. She showered away every bit of sweat, blood and grime, dried off with one of the lumpy towels and then stretched out naked on the bed, relishing the feeling of being clean before she had to get back into her grubby clothes. She text Deadpool the motel name and her room number, though she wasn't sure if his cell phone would have survived the explosions. She wasn't too concerned. Deadpool had his ways - he could always find her when he wanted her.

Sure enough, he turned up a few hours later. It was dark and the blinds were drawn, so Hayden had never bothered to dress. She'd been lounging across the bed, watching some lame hidden camera show, when she heard the banging on the door. She got up and pulled the latch back to let Deadpool inside. He was indeed in one piece, but what was left of his suit didn't leave much to the imagination. It was lucky it was late and they were in a dodgy area of town. Seeing someone walking around virtually naked was one thing; it was a whole other thing when every inch of them was only so much scar tissue that it made them look like they'd be more at home in a horror movie.

He gave her naked figure the briefest of appraising glances before flopping onto the bed. "Now that is the kind of sight I deserve to come back to after you ditched me."

"What did you expect?" said Hayden lightly, as she put the latch back on the door. "All the king's horses and all the king's men might be able to put you back together, but they can't do the same for me."

He grumbled something unintelligible, followed by what sounded like 'bad little henchgirl'.

"I think you mean good little henchgirl," Hayden corrected, folding her arms. It didn't have much effect whilst she was naked. All it did was push up her boobs. "Good little henchgirl who brought you all of the toys to play with, including a variety of pointy things that you never actually used, after being so insistent on them."

Deadpool rolled over onto his back, happily displaying his crotch. He clearly liked the push-up boob display. "I've got a pointy thing right here that I can use."

Hayden couldn't help but smile. She supposed she had promised him. She obligingly crawled back onto the bed with him, a different kind of adrenaline already beginning to surge. Big guns, explosions and killing people weren't the only perks of this job. "Well, at least I know this one won't go to waste tonight."


End file.
